When you pick up an apple, do you consent to the pesticides used on them?

THAT’S the example you choose?

There are no informed here, only pitchfork wielders.

Absolutely stunning. You actually unironically do not understand what consent is. You need to take an ethics class.

I’ll give you the really basic version:

#1: People are allowed to say no to you for any reason or no reason at all. It doesn’t matter if you think their reasons are invalid or misinformed. No means no.

#2: A lack of a “no” does not mean “yes”. If a person cannot say “no” to what you are doing because they have no idea you’re doing it in the first place then that, in some ways, is even worse than disregarding a “no”. At least in that case they know something has been done to them.

That, by the way, is what the “informed” in “informed consent” means. It doesn’t mean “a person needs to know what they’re talking about in order for their ‘no’ to be valid”, like you seem to think it means.

Doctors used to routinely retain tissue samples for experimentation without informing their patients they were doing this. The reasoning went that this didn’t harm the patient at all, the origin of the tissue was anonymized, the patient wouldn’t understand why tissue samples were needed anyway, and it might save lives. That’s a much better justification than trying to develop a web browser, and yet today that practice is widely considered to be deplorable, almost akin to rape.

The concept of informed consent continues to evade tech bros. It makes me wonder how many other areas of your life you apply this line of reasoning to.

Out of curiosity, how does it work and what do you like about it?

Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable)

So in other words we sell your data and get paid for it, and some countries won’t let us lie about it.